Psychological health and spiritual health go hand in hand but they are not the same. Neither one alone can help make a person whole again. While many pastoral counselors do harm by overestimating their competence, , many psychologists do harm by ignoring the spiritual dimension, or pretending it doesn’t exist,
I agree entirely.
I agree entirely.
When Jesus came up to the pool of Bethesda, He healed only one man rather than all of them. He could have entered by way of the front portico in all glory, but He chose to come from the side exit where even the lowest of the low were placed because the guy couldn’t even get to the waters when they were stirred.
By healing the one man, He established His authority over the evil of the disease. And every last one of those guys at the pool eventually died — at the very least, the paralytic was healed of his own spiritual deficiencies. Even though he was healed, he still died in this physical life.
Jesus doesn’t heal everyone from mental health issues, just like everyone eventually dies. But He DOES heal everyone of their spiritual deficiencies with the simplest assent to His sovereignty over one’s life.
Similar to when Paul was denied healing of the thorn in his side but obviously was healed of his spiritual depravity, many who suffer from mental health issues are in the same boat.
One issue that has risen is the fact that some pastors believe that psychologocsl counselling outside the framework of scripture is wrong and does not produce the desired results to begin with.
John McArthur is one such pastor. I think he deals with this in his book Reckless Faith published in 1994.